No, Useful Idiot, That’s Not Sharia
On February 10, 2026, in a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government, Representative Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, delivered the following sentence into the congressional record:
“Sharia is concerned with guiding individual, personal religious observance, not shaping national laws. Just as other belief systems guide the adherents of those faiths, Sharia guides Muslims in how to pray, dress, eat, or fast, and includes rules about marriage, divorce, and the raising of children.”
On May 13, 2026, in another hearing, with substantially identical language, Congresswomen women Pramila Jayapal said:
“Sharia is individual, personal religious observance, comparable to Christianity and Judaism.”
The Maryland office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a press release thanking the Democratic members of the subcommittee and explicitly reinforcing the same talking point: sharia primarily refers to personal religious practice and moral guidance, including prayer, fasting, charity, honesty, marriage, inheritance, business ethics, and caring for neighbors. Similar to Halacha in Judaism and Canon Law in Christianity.
This is a lie. It is not a partial truth or a contested interpretation. It is the specific kind of lie that takes a small true thing and uses it to conceal a much larger thing that is also true and that the audience needs to know about. The small true thing is that sharia includes provisions on personal devotion, when to pray, when to fast, how to perform ritual ablutions. The much larger thing being concealed is that sharia is a comprehensive legal and political system that prescribes specific content for criminal law, family law, financial law, the political authority of non-Muslims over Muslims, the status of religious minorities, and the obligation of jihad.
The personal devotional portion is one room in a building that has many other rooms. Scanlon, Jayapal, and CAIR are deceiving Americans.